“What would I have done,” asked my wife, “if that horrid wretch had come into the room?”
“Oh, we could have brought an action of trespass against him;[176] for the possession we have of this room is quite sufficient to entitle us to recover against a wrong-doer, although we could not maintain such an action against the hotel-keeper if he should enter for any proper purpose.”[177]
“But that would not be a very great satisfaction,” said my wife.
“Well, it is the best we could do, for we could not summon to our aid the good spirits that interfered on behalf of the Lady Godiva to punish Peeping Tom.”
“But what if he had assaulted me?” she queried.
“Well, I am afraid I would have had to settle the matter with him, for an innkeeper is not bound to keep safe the bodies of his guests,[178] but merely their baggage; that is, such articles of necessary or personal convenience as are usually carried by travelers for their own use, the facts and circumstances of each case deciding what these articles may be.[179] Hush! What is that?”
“A mosquito.”
“Well, I must kill it.”
“Never mind,” urged my wife. “Spare the little creature.”
“I can’t stand their bites any more than my betters, and others who have gone before. When they pierced the boots of the Father of his Country in the New Jersey marshes, that exemplary individual indulged in bad language; they drove back the army of Julian the Apostate, or apostle, as Lord Kenyon called him; they compelled Sapor, the Persian, to raise the siege of Nisibes, stinging his elephants and camels into madness; they render some parts of the banks of the Po uninhabitable, and cause people in some countries to sleep in pits with nothing but their heads above ground. How, then, can you expect me to lie quietly here and wait to have their horrid war-whoop sung in mine ears, as they dance in giddy mazes from side to side, ere they plunge their sharp stilettos into my shrinking flesh?”